Stress-induced activation of the proline biosynthetic pathway in Bacillus subtilis: a population-wide and single-cell study of the osmotically controlled proHJ promoter.

Bacillus subtilis, in its natural habitat, is regularly exposed to rapid changes in the osmolarity of its surrounding. As its primary survival strategy, it accumulates large amounts of the compatible solute proline by activating the de novo proline biosynthesis pathway and exploiting the glutamate pools. This osmotically-induced biosynthesis requires activation of a SigA-type promoter that drives the expression of the proHJ operon. Population-wide studies have shown that the activity of the proHJ promoter correlates with the increased osmotic pressure of the environment. Therefore, the activation of the proHJ transcription should be an adequate measure of the adaptation to osmotic stress through proline synthesis in the absence of other osmoprotectants. In this study, we investigate the kinetics of the proHJ promoter activation and the early adaptation to mild osmotic upshift at the single-cell level. Under these conditions, we observed a switching point and heterogeneous proline biosynthesis gene expression, where the subpopulation of cells showing active proHJ transcription is able to continuously divide, and those unresponsive to osmotic stress remain dormant. Additionally, we demonstrate that bactericidal antibiotics significantly upregulate proHJ transcription in the absence of externally imposed osmotic pressure, suggesting that the osmotically-controlled proline biosynthesis pathway is also involved in the antibiotic-mediated stress response.